Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Terry and the Caterpillars

You all know I love an I Can Read Book and a Science I Can Read Book even more so. This week, my son's been consumed with Benny's Animals, painstakingly cutting out animals from old National Geographics and sorting them into families.Then there's Plenty of Fish, The Secret Three, Seeds and More Seeds! The list goes on and on... can you ever get enough.

Here we have another Selsam/Lobel collaboration, this one involving a girl and her intrigue over the altered states of the caterpillar.

Terry ran into the house.
"I have a caterpillar," she cried.
"Good," said her mother.
"What are you going to do with it?"
"Keep it," said Terry.
"Where?" said her mother.
"In a jar," said Terry.

The best sort of childhood fun always starts with a jar. From cocoon to moth, Terry's experiment leads her on the path to scientific discovery, and so awesome that Lobel's wonderful scratches get to take us along for the ride.

I remember this book and checking it out of school library. I want to say this book was also done in Spanish and Terry was replaced with Teresita. I think I am remembering correctly because my name is Teresita and seeing the Spanish version at the public library was so awesome for me!

How lovely. For me, like a shout out from my past. I knew Millie Selsam and stayed with her at her fire Island house many decades ago. A friend and roomate of mine also illustrated several of her science books. I wish both of them were still here.